FLORIDA Democrat Congressman, Joe Garcia, takes money from radical Muslim group

 

Bare Naked Islam's Weblog 

Emerge USA is a Florida-based organization whose unstated goal is to give radical Muslims a political voice in America. One way they do this is by getting their leaders placed in key positions of power. Another way is by making friends with thosealready in power. United States Representative from Florida, Joe Garcia, is one of those friends. He has accepted thousands of dollars from Emerge for his 2014 reelection bid, and he has returned the favor by helping the group raise more money.

Frontpage  (h/t Mike F) Earlier this month, Emerge held its annual fundraising dinner in Miami, at the DoubleTree Hotel and Airport Convention Center. Featured at the event was Sayed Ammar Nakshawani, an Islamic lecturer from England who is a devotee of Iran’s deceased terrorist leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and who has called for the destruction of Israel.

In a speech found on YouTube and the lecture section of his website, titled ‘Sayed Khomeini’s Quds Day,’ Nakshawani states, “The shame in this world is that, if we put ourselves down to a two-state solution, we would allow a country which has broken 60 UN resolutions to have their own freedom of peace. It is barbaric that this Zionist state is allowed to continue.”

Emerge advertised Nakshawani in an event flyer as well as an Emerge-produced video of Nakshawani telling people to attend.

Given Emerge’s past, having this man speak was no surprise. What was a surprise, though, was that a sitting U.S. Congressman, Joe Garcia, would also be speaking at the event, even after the leader of his political party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, cancelled her keynote address in front of the same group just two years prior. One of the two co-chairmen of Emerge is South Florida attorney Khurrum Basir Wahid. According to his bio, Wahid specializes in defending “individuals charged with allegedly committing or conspiring to commit acts of terrorism.”

Prior to helping found Emerge, Wahid was a legal advisor for the national office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a director of CAIR’s Florida chapter. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named by the U.S. Justice Department as a co-conspirator to the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. In 2011, Wahid himself was placed on a U.S. government terrorist watch list.

The other co-chairman of Emerge is Afaq J. Durrani. Durrani is the General Secretary of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH), a sizable community organization consisting of 19 area mosques. ISGH is a subsidiary of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which like CAIR, was named by the U.S. government a co-conspirator in the financing of Hamas.

Ten photos featuring Congressman Garcia at the fundraising banquet are found on the Emerge Facebook page, some showing him speaking at the podium, many with a huge smile on his face. One of the photos is of him playfully grabbing the arm of co-founder and former Emerge President Farooq Mith

Joe Garcia’s willingness to accept money from an organization such as Emerge is troubling to say the least, and his enthusiasm and eagerness to speak in front of the group is evidence that his acceptance of the money was no mistake.